perisher

perisher

English

Etymology

perish +‎ -er

Noun

perisher (plural perishers)

1. (Britain, informal) An annoying child, a brat.

   Get off my lawn, you little perisher!

2. (rare) One who perishes.
   • 1969, Arthur Theodore Culwick, Who Shall Inherit the Earth?, page 69:

     The Perishers

     Various peoples have perished in the past - for instance, Neanderthal Man and, later, the Tasmanians. Others are in the process of perishing - the aboriginees of Australia, the Bushmen, the Ituri Pygmies and the Red Indians.

   • 1976, Akros, page 56:

     They died to decree that government of and by and for the PEOPLE (identity undefined) should never perish. The poor perishers, perishing still.

   • 2010, Alan Weeks, Bloody Picnic: Tommy's Humour, 1914-18, The History Press (→ISBN):

     It was cheaper but more tedious to crunch the blighters between finger and nail. There was a rather satisfying little crack as each of the perishers perished.

3. (Britain, Australia, obsolete) An extreme.
   • 1865, Only a Clod, in Three Volumes, page 184:

     'So I've come down to Coltonslough, being, as I understand, the dullest hole upon the earth's crust, and I mean to go in a perisher.' A 'perisher' was his expression. 'And I mean to read like old boots; so you may let your servant light me a fire, ...'

   • 1888, Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, page 314:

     Then he most times went in an awful perisher — took a month to it, and was never sober day or night the whole time. When he'd spent all his money he'd crawl out of the township and get away into the country more dead than alive, ...

   • 1890 November 7, Lie. Vict. Gaz.:

     He went in a perisher last night, laying aginst Sir Tatton Sykes for the Derby with a half-a-dozen thousand pound notes in his hands, all of which he will lose.